Salad days

I have a love/hate relationship with salads.  I love to eat them, but I hate to make them.

Well, mostly I love to eat them ...  I can certainly pass on the ubiquitous "side salad" of iceberg lettuce chunks, half ripe tomato wedge, maybe a bit of shredded carrot - especially if it's served with (Heaven, forbid!) Thousand Islands dressing. 

And I hate to make them ... I hate washing the lettuce and other veggies, cutting everything up into bite-sized pieces, and finding some acceptable bottled salad dressing to add some flavour.

But all that has changed!  I have found the perfect salad, easy on the prep, and oh, so good!  (So good, in fact, that I built an entire meal around it when we had friends in to lunch.)

There are only three ingredients: lettuce, a pear, and some blue cheese.  I make it even simpler by using those small artisan lettuces, four to a package, which require minimal washing, and already-crumbled blue cheese.  And the salad dressing is just as easy - 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp honey.  We have a great oil/vinegar store in Victoria, so I use olive Leccino extra virgin oil and Sicilian Lemon white balsamic vinegar.

Try it.  You'll like it!

A complaint free world

Soapbox Alert!!!

One of my earliest life lessons came from the movie, Bambi.  Bambi's rabbit friend, Thumper, tells him ... "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."

Later in my work life, I heard something at a conference that spoke to the same sentiment ... "If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind."

And more recently, I read a book called "A Complaint Free World" by Bill Bowen <http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/>.  He posits that "Complaining spreads negative energy and negative energy cannot create a positive output."

I think Thumper had it right ...

SpROIng

What a difference a week makes.  It is truly spring in Victoria now.

The herons are much more active, flying back and forth with twigs in their beaks as they renovate their nests.  Their nesting colonies are much in evidence ... the paths are littered with white spots from their droppings.  We now need to be careful where we walk .  SPLAT!!

The snow drops are all gone, replaced by crocuses and daffodils.  The rhodos, camellias and azaleas are in bloom.  So are flowering currant, flowering quince ... 

And the cherry trees - wow, what a show!

Coming home to roost

The herons have returned to Beacon Hill Park to build their nests.  Yesterday I counted eleven in a single tree near Goodacre Lake.  Goodacre Lake is a favourite stopping place on our way to the grocery store.  No bald eagles, thank heaven!  A few years ago the eagles ate all the chicks and chased the herons out of the park for a couple of years.  The park built an osprey platform nearby to keep the eagles away.  Seems to be working.  Here's a Where's Waldo? picture.  Can you find the herons?